Blue Apron Vegetarian Subscription Box Review – August 2016

This post may contain referral/affiliate links. If you buy something, MSA may earn a commission. Read the full disclosure.

Blue Apronis a subscription meal delivery service. Every week, they send seasonal recipes created by their culinary team and all of the pre-measured ingredients you need to make them at home. This is a review of the vegetarian 2-person plan.

In addition to their 2-Person Subscription Plan, which features seasonally-inspired meals for two, Blue Apron also offers a Family Plan that features kid-friendly recipes and family-style meals for four. (Note that this is a review of the 2-Person Subscription Plan.)

Cooking tofu at home brings back memories of my 2nd apartment, which I adored. I lived in a small one-bedroom apartment in a converted old mansion while attending college and working and still made sure to make healthy meals for myself. I had a go-to sesame tofu recipe and this reminded me of that and the satisfaction of cooking meals for one.

Blue Apron sends all the ingredients in exactly the amount you need. Not pictured here is fresh garlic which was used in all 3 recipes. I really love not having to measure!

Here are all the ingredients prepped by Liz who acted as my sous chef for this review (thanks, Liz!) The recipe said to drain and pat the tofu dry with paper towels. I recommend pressing tofu to squeeze out as much water as possible. Freezing tofu before use also does nice things to the texture!

Here’s the tofu stir-fried and dressed in the tangy sauce. I like spicy food so I added all of the Sambal Oelek to the sauce. It was a perfect amount of spicy and not too spicy for Liz, who isn’t too into spicy food.

The tofu was coated lightly in corn starch which gave the tofu a little bit of crisp. The green beans were fresh and delicious with the tomatoes, sesame oil, and garlic. The tofu was my favorite part and Liz loved it too. Eric isn’t a huge fan of tofu but he said this recipe was “decent” :).

Recipe #2- Pan Bagnat-Style Sandwiches

Calories: about 780 per serving

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 35-45 minutes

Good sandwiches are a lot of work! There were a lot of tasty components to these squash sandwiches. It was also paired with a light salad with radishes and a honey dijon vinaigrette.

Here are all the fresh ingredients laid out!

Liz mixed up the caper mayo, hard boiled the eggs, marinated the cucumbers and prepped the veggies.

Yum! The sautéed squash was an expectedly delicious sandwich filler and worked so well with the marinated cucumber. I’m not usually a fan of cucumber but the vinegar marinade worked some magic and made it tasty.

Going into this, Eric declared that he hates squash but that he would try this sandwich for the good of the team. One bite in, he said this was one of the best sandwiches he’d ever had! I made myself a vegan version by skipping the egg and mayo on the sandwich and the cheese on the salad. It was so delicious! The bread was top-notch and everything was so flavorful. The salad was light and balanced well with a very filling sandwich.

Recipe #3- Summer Vegetable Gnocchi

Calories: about 700 per serving

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 20-30 minutes

I only recently cooked gnocchi at home for the first time, it’s so good with pesto sauce and I was excited to try it with fresh corn, kale, basil, and bell pepper.

There’s just something fun about receiving a single ear of corn in the mail.

Here’s all the produce chopped and ready to cook up in the pan before adding the gnocchi.

While cooking this, I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to be very flavorful. I was so wrong! Even without the parmesan slivers on my portion, this was so delicious and satisfying! I love this twist on they typical pasta night and I think even my kale-adverse husband would like this. Eric made his portion with tons of cheese and absolutely loved it. The red pepper flakes added the perfect light spice paired with the corn and kale.

Verdict: This was my first time cooking and tasting Blue Apron meals. I was very impressed with the recipes, everything was so flavorful and tasty even without the dairy additions. My husband and I love to cook but we’ve been so busy lately that we’ve been eating the same things over and over. This is a great service for busy people who still want to cook but don’t have time to make a weekly menu, shop, and measure.

Emily is a design enthusiast who loves beautiful objects. She’s really into vegan snacks, corgis, home goods, and minimalist makeup. She is currently fostering a healthy subscription addiction.

All views in this review are the opinion of the author. My Subscription Addiction will never accept payment in exchange for a review, but will accept a box at no cost to provide honest opinions on the box. This post may contain affiliate/referral links. If you buy something, MSA may earn an affiliate commission. Read the complete My Subscription Addiction disclosure.

I have tried some blue apron vegetarian meals with a friend and while they tasted great, they didn’t seem like the time saver I would need in order to be worth the cost. I’m definitely a busy bee (I’m finishing my dissertation, I work full-time as a professor 2 hours from from my house, I’m a mom, and my husband works full time and is finishing school too).

But I still find it more helpful to buy fresh things already cut up (frozen diced onions or frozen slivered peppers is a good example) and taking the time to get the ingredients (which doesn’t take too long honestly ) than buy something that just has things premeasured but I have to prepare anyway.

They are definitely not a time saver — they take way more time and effort to prepare than what I would otherwise fix for dinner! When life starts piling up, I usually end up skipping several shipments. Costco’s foods section tends to alternate with Blue Apron in our kitchen.

My husband says no more meal prep subscriptions. He does most (OK, nearly all) of the cooking around here. We’ve had Purple Carrot a few times. And these things take super long to prepare. Also, 700+ calorie dinners are not a good thing when one is trying to lose weight.

We also find that measuring is rarely critical to dinner-type recipes. It doesn’t really matter whether you have 1/2 cup onion or 1 cup of onion in the spaghetti sauce (as long as you weigh it if you are counting calories). Maybe you want to see how much rice you are cooking by using a measuring cup, but that only takes a minute.

I’ve been getting the vegetarian box for several months now and I am consistently impressed by it. My kids laugh at me because, as a vegetarian,
I really don’t much care for vegetables, and the Blue Apron vegetarian dishes don’t always sound very tasty to me. But they are almost always phenomenal! Definitely a great way to venture away from the mac and cheese rut we often fall into.